


Afraid To Even Cry

by orphan_account



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Study, Drabble, M/M, Mental Illness, Minor Character Death, Thorin is a little bundle of angst, also titled Thorin Needs A Hug, and maybe depressed it's not really clear, of a sort, some bagginshield cuteness, who is in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 14:20:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5669116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Thorin had always needed touch.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was an awful tugging void within him, not an ache but an absence, and it was there for as long as he could remember. There were some things able to alleviate it, temporarily, but nothing ever more concrete; and he could not search for a cure, not properly, because such things — such weaknesses — were not tolerated by his strong and proud people. Especially not for royalty.</em>
</p><p>A quick drabble about Thorin's loneliness and the things which heal it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afraid To Even Cry

**Author's Note:**

> little thing I wrote on my phone to celebrate my new account on AO3 and the (hopeful) end of my writer's block :D
> 
> Title from 'No Bravery' by James Blunt.
> 
> Not beta-read, so feel free to point out any mistakes :)

Thorin had always needed touch.

It was an awful tugging void within him, not an ache but an _absence_ , and it was there for as long as he could remember. There were some things able to alleviate it, temporarily, but nothing ever more concrete; and he could not search for a cure, not properly, because such things — such _weaknesses_ — were not tolerated by his strong and proud people. Especially not for royalty.

When Thorin was a dwarfling, the only one who seemed to forget that was his grandfather, who would hold him close when he came to his rooms shuddering and empty, and wrap him in warmth and let silence do the talking.

Then Thror fell to the call of gold and all of his warmth was leeched by the cold metal, and Thorin was once more alone.

Nights were the worst.

Thorin would curl into himself, a tiny, defenceless ball beneath rich silk coverings, and wrap his arms around himself in a feeble effort to stem the bleeding. Because his heart, his soul, his essence, was seeping out of the gaping hole in his chest and he had nothing -- no one -- to stem it. He was alone, absolutely and completely.

When Frerin and Dís came he found another solace. The three of them would wriggle beneath the covers in a tangle of limbs and warmth and muffled laughter, and Thorin could feel their love slowly stitching over the hole in his chest.

Then Smaug came and Erebor fell, and Thorin still felt the weakness but it was simply not allowed to exist. He shoved it away in black anger and forcefully wrenched his thoughts to his peoples' safety, ignoring his siblings' worried eyes and his grandfather's still clouded with insanity, ignored the _fading_ creeping across his chest, ignored the dragging loneliness which tore at him when he lay on the hard ground at night, ignored the tears which wanted to bead like poisoned diamond and that damned weakness which wanted to overwhelm him. 

Thorin found his brother in the faded woods by the battleground of Khazad-Dûm, his brightness dulled, red staining his cold skin. He choked out his hopes and pleas for Thorin -- for _Thorin_ , while crimson bubbles swelled by his mouth and he choked on his own rasping breaths.

He broke eventually.

 _'I am scared, Thorin,’_ he sobbed. ‘ _I feel as if I am fading.’_

Worse than his grandfather's swift beheading.  Worse than his father's disappearance. Worse...as his brother's eyes misted over in death.

Thorin watched dully as the world greyed around the edges and the front of his own chest tore wide open, fragile stitchings torn permanently beyond repair. He could not muster the will to care as he watched himself bleed out to the grass, even if it was visible to only him.

Eventually they came to Ered Luin, and another avenue of escape was opened to him. But the embrace of strangers felt hollow and cold and he always disappeared before they could wake, wandering aimlessly through the city as his heart cried out in fear. It was eroding away, now, even if Thorin chose to ignore it. Dís’s disappointed silence and Sviur’s forced levity became stifling. They had found someone to heal their emptiness; they could not possibly understand.

And Thorin was lonely, lonelier than ever before.

Nights were the worst.

There was no warmth, no comforting hand, no voice in the darkness. There was just Thorin, and his failings, and his weakness, alone in the dark.

When the call came to retake their home Thorin threw all left of himself into the task. He did not know what he wanted; but he did want this. At least, he thought he did. So he travelled far, kept his head unbowed even as his heart trickled from him like sand from an hourglass, as his kin refused him and his kith turned their backs on him.

Thorin paused outside the round green door, heard his loyal warriors laugh and make merry, and knew that he must give them their time, for as soon as he entered the warmth would be gone. He was right, of course; but he somewhat forgot the gaping void in his chest in the yellow softness of the halfling's strange dwelling, in the smiles of his much older sister-sons, in the key and the map and dreams of what had once been impossible.

On the road he removed himself from the others. As always he felt his own loneliness like a draft whispering about a long-abandoned castle of his mind, and as always he collected nails and a hammer and blocked up all the cracks, only keeping it away as it was still there. The tug was worse than ever and he wrapped his own arms about himself in a feeble attempt to stave it off, something which he had not done since being a dwarfling in Erebor. He clenched his teeth against his own damnable weakness and kept the hilt of his sword close.

Thorin felt it first upon the Carrock.

Swift, yes, but unmistakeable.

For long days after it took his years of self-discipline to retain his dignity, to treat the halfl— _hobbit_ as before — albeit with the new respect he had earned — but it was a hard battle to win; for how had this simple, boring, weak creature, this unassuming Child of the Kindly West, brought him true _content_ with but a short touch?

So Thorin began to wonder if that was truly all there was to Bilbo Baggins.

He immersed himself in studying this odd being, and in his absorption did not once think of his own emptiness — it was forgotten; not repressed, not pushed down, _forgotten_. Thorin was too interested in how the hobbit defied everything he had first thought of him.

Bilbo was anything but plain.

In feature and body, yes, he was admittedly unremarkable; but there were a thousand different things to him, a million, which could never possibly be boring, and were infinitely more precious than any sort of physical beauty. Bilbo’s countless tiny emotions — the twiddle of a nose, the twitch of a finger, the narrow of an eye — made him so much more special, and left Thorin feeling oddly…fuzzy?

Bilbo was odd, but not in the way which Thorin had first thought. Instead of being strange, weird, he turned out to simply be entirely unpredictable; when Thorin thought he would cower, he straightened; give in, he strengthened; leave, he stayed; stay silent, he spoke; cower, he jabbed a warning finger in Thorin’s nose.

Thorin found himself smiling and laughing a frankly disturbing amount of times. Balin was certainly unsettled, and Dwalin had grabbed for his axes when Thorin had laughed properly for the first time in over a hundred and fifty years.

Last of all, Bilbo was certainly not weak. He had proved that enough times in both combat and wit, but more than that, when Thorin had embraced him he had felt the strength in his body. Bilbo was shorter, yes, but Thorin knew more than anyone not to assume someone weak or submissive because of their height.

Thorin no longer dreaded the night.

When he lay alone in his bedroll, instead of a creeping sense of emptiness he felt the ghost of a warm body pressed against his. But it was still not enough and still he was alone, and tired, and frightened, and unsure, and stubbornly suppressing these weaknesses in the way of his people.

They reached the mountain, and suddenly Thorin did not understand how he could have ever felt cold, or empty.

The gold was so, so _warm_.

And Thorin understood. He looked upon his faded memories, of a richly-clad figure weaving in ecstasy through piles and piles of shimmering gold, and understood.

Here was the warmth.

Here was the companionship.

No longer was he lonely.

Treasure could not deceive him; could not entice him in with fake words and fake smiles and fake love before leaving him, or even worse, with true smiles and true words and true love before dying. No, gold was much better than living companionship could ever be. Thorin was no longer empty, he told himself, even as his insides wore away behind that thin sheen of precious metal which he had forged over his chest.

It was just the Arkenstone, Thorin told himself. Just the Arkenstone he needed.

There was one moment when he was nearly free. An acorn and a slow, wary smile, teeth bright against the burglar's grubby skin; and for a moment he _remembered_. But then he recalled that the Arkenstone was just as good, nay, _better,_ and would not wither and die like the living could. The Arkenstone could fix him. The Arkenstone was his heart.

So when Thorin saw it tossed so casually into the air, his heart on display for all to see, the only thing which could fix this ever-present emptiness, he remembered no more.

Thorin came back to himself with his gauntlets curled around the hobbit's neck, the echoes of a thunderous voice clanging through his head even as that — that _warmth_ seeped up his fingers.

Then he saw the terror on Bilbo's face and he just crumbled.

Thorin did not watch him leave.

 _The Arkenstone_ , whispered his mind. _The Arkenstone can heal you._

 _No_ , he replied dully. _Nothing can. Nothing ever can. That is how it has been. That is how it is. That is how it always will be._

But if Thorin’s life was to be empty, he would give it to a cause.

And he remembered not the gold, not the jewels, not the Arkenstone, but his grandfather’s low chuckles through the dark and his siblings’ snickers beneath the blanket and his nephews’ idiotic grins and that perfect warmth on the Carrock.

And his sword was in his hand and his courage in his faded heart, and he was _Thorin Oakenshield_ once more.

Hours later he should have forgotten what warmth was as he lay upon the ice, should have felt his self bleed out along with his life, but he could not because Bilbo was with him.

Bilbo's hand was patting desperately across his chest, across the gaping emptiness which was no longer there, and Thorin was no longer alone.

He was warm.

He was loved.

He was, at last, complete.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Poor Thorin. Does he live? Does he die? Does he spend the rest of his life warm and happy with his Consort Bilbo? Up to you, of course.
> 
> I was originally going to write more, after Thorin wakes, and he FINALLY gets his hug, but I like how it ended here and I hope you did too :)
> 
> Comments/criticisms/reviews make an author feel fuzzy <3


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